cPanel & WHM’s AutoSSL

Three and a half years ago (in a galaxy far, far away) cPanel began planning a feature that we hoped would make the entire internet safer and more secure. There have been a lot of changes, both in the industry and in the company, since then. It took significant re-writes of a lot of the systems inside cPanel & WHM and the cPanel store, but it’s finally here. In cPanel & WHM version 58 we welcome AutoSSL, and it is a fantastic addition to our list of features.

What is AutoSSL?

AutoSSL is the solution to one of the biggest pain points that exists for every cPanel & WHM user: SSL installation and renewal. With AutoSSL that pain goes away. There are no more forms to fill out, and no more certificates to manually copy into place. Once you enable AutoSSL, your websites are automatically secured with a free, Domain Validated SSL certificate. Perhaps more exciting is the fact that your coverage will never lapse, because at expiration time a new, free SSL is requested and automatically installed.

How do you enable AutoSSL?

Enabling is easy! In WHM navigate to the AutoSSL interface, and adjust the selected toggle to cPanel. Then click save.

The server will automatically do the following:

Add a feature to WHM >> Packages >> Feature Manager named “AutoSSL”

Add a cronjob ( /etc/cron.d/cpanel_autossl ) to handle the downloading and installation of new SSL certificates for all of your hosted domains.

There are some limitations when dealing with very large numbers of domains that is outside cPanel’s control, which you can read about in our documentation.

Troubleshooting AutoSSL

If you have any problem with the application, you can view the logs for AutoSSL right from the WHM interface. After the first run of the cronjob you’ll see the logs listed in the ‘Logs’ tab. You can load the log by selecting the log file you’d like to view and clicking ‘View Log’.

What’s next for AutoSSL?

It looks like cPanel & WHM version 58 will make it to RELEASE next week, which means this feature will start popping up for more and more of our customers. One of the most highly requested additions to AutoSSL is support for Let’s Encrypt.

We’re also working on adding SNI support to cPanel, WHM, and Webmail. When that’s complete, the free SSLs will allow all cPanel, WHM, and webmail logins to use the domain SSLs, and resolve this feature request. That might not make it until cPanel & WHM version 62, but it’s definitely coming!